Excellent...Anyone interested in Shiki should consult [this] by all means. -Burton Watson

Rather than resist the vast changes sweeping Japan in the 19th century, the poet Masaoka Shiki (1867-1902) incorporated new Western influences into his country's native haiku and tanka verse. Based on extensive readings of Shiki's own writings and accounts of the poet by his contemporaries and family, Donald Keene Charts Shiki's distinctive (and often contradictory) experiments with haiku and tanka, a dynamic process that made the survival of these genres possible in a globalizing world.

These poems--more than a hundred haiku, several tanka, and three kanshi--are arranged chronologically within each genre, revealing the development of Masaoka Shiki's (1867-1902) art and the seamless way in which he wove his life and illness into his poetry. Watson's introduction deftly explores the course of Shiki's life and places him in relation to Japanese history, literature and thought.

How can literary forms fashion a nation? Though genres such as the novel and newspaper have been credited with shaping a national imagination and a sense of community, during the rapid modernization of the Meiji period, Japanese intellectuals took a striking—but often overlooked—interest in poetry’s ties to national character. In Idly Scribbling Rhymers, Robert Tuck offers a groundbreaking study of the connections among traditional poetic genres, print media, and visions of national community in late nineteenth-century Japan that reveals the fissures within the process of imagining the nation. Structured around the work of the poet and critic Masaoka Shiki, Idly Scribbling Rhymers considers how poetic genres were read, written, and discussed within the emergent worlds of the newspaper and literary periodical in Meiji Japan. Tuck details attempts to cast each of the three traditional poetic genres of haiku, kanshi, and waka as Japan’s national poetry. He analyzes the nature and boundaries of the concepts of national poetic community that were meant to accompany literary production, showing that Japan’s visions of community were defined by processes of hierarchy and exclusion and deeply divided along lines of social class, gender, and political affiliation. A comprehensive study of nineteenth-century Japanese poetics and print culture, Idly Scribbling Rhymers reveals poetry’s surprising yet fundamental role in emerging forms of media and national consciousness.

A collection of experimental Japanese poetry in original Japanese script and precise English translations, this volume also includes reference notes, biographical, historical, linguistic and cultural information on author Shiki Masaoka.

Enjoy and Fully Understand 20 haiku by 正岡子規 (Masaoka Shiki) (1867–1902) Haiku fascinates people worldwide—so much emotion and meaning can be conveyed with so few words. Yet, few outside of Japan can truly appreciate Japanese haiku in its original form. Even Basho, the most celebrated classical Japanese haiku poet, is typically only accessible through translation. While good translations can capture the essence of the words, the nuances and cultural aspects are often lost. This book is designed to help beginner to intermediate students of Japanese learn vocabulary and grammar while uncovering some of the subtle meanings that are lost in translation. The collection features twenty haiku, presented in both Japanese and English, with QR codes that allow you to instantly hear recordings of the poems by simply scanning them with your phone. Each haiku is followed by a short commentary in both languages, along with a comprehensive vocabulary list that includes definitions and grammatical notes for all the Japanese terms. In this new edition, we've added even more commentary and provided multiple translations for each haiku, ranging from literal to figurative interpretations. At the end of the book, you’ll find a download link to access all the sound files, complementing the QR codes. What You'll Get: Read and understand twenty of Masaoka Shiki's most famous haiku. Perfect for beginner to intermediate students of Japanese. Downloadable sound files for all the haiku in Japanese and the commentary. Definitions for every word, along with explanations of key grammar points and haiku elements. Every haiku and commentary include a QR code for instant access to audio recordings. Newly updated and expanded with a modern design, enriched vocabulary lists, and more translations and commentary. 正岡(まさおか)子規(しき) (Masaoka Shiki) (1867–1902) was a Japanese poet, essayist, and literary critic, best known for his work in revitalizing traditional Japanese poetry forms such as 俳句(はいく) (haiku) and 短歌(たんか) (tanka) during the Meiji period. Born in Matsuyama, Ehime Prefecture, his birth name was Masaoka Tsunenori (正岡(まさおか) 常(つね)規(のり)), but he later adopted the pen name "Shiki 子規(しき)," which means "cuckoo." According to legend, the cuckoo is said to cough up blood when it sings, a poignant symbol for Shiki, who suffered from tuberculosis for much of his life. Despite living only 34 short years, Shiki is credited with writing nearly 20,000 haiku. Many consider him one of the four great haiku masters, alongside Matsuo Bashō, Yosa Buson, and Kobayashi Issa. Ready to improve your Japanese while deepening your cultural knowledge?

Haiku—seventeen-syllable poems that evoke worlds despite their brevity—have captivated Japanese readers since the seventeenth century. Today the form is practiced worldwide and is an established part of our common global heritage. This beautifully bound volume presents new English translations of classic poetry by the four great masters of Japanese haiku: Matsuo Bash, Yosa Buson, Kobayashi Issa, and Masaoka Shiki. The haiku are accompanied by both the original Japanese and a phonetic transcription.

A compact collection of more than 500 poems from Jack Kerouac that reveal a lesser known but important side of his literary legacy “Above all, a haiku must be very simple and free of all poetic trickery and make a little picture and yet be as airy and graceful as a Vivaldi pastorella.”—Jack Kerouac Renowned for his groundbreaking Beat Generation novel On the Road, Jack Kerouac was also a master of the haiku, the three-line, seventeen-syllable Japanese poetic form. Following the tradition of Basho, Buson, Shiki, Issa, and other poets, Kerouac experimented with this centuries-old genre, taking it beyond strict syllable counts into what he believed was the form’s essence. He incorporated his “American” haiku in novels and in his correspondence, notebooks, journals, sketchbooks, and recordings. In Book of Haikus, Kerouac scholar Regina Weinreich has supplemented a core haiku manuscript from Kerouac’s archives with a generous selection of the rest of his haiku, from both published and unpublished sources.

One of the more unusual baseball books of the season, this remarkable new collection, which includes poems from both America and Japan, captures perfectly the thrill of the game in haiku.